


The Realm of Possibilities

by gingercinderella



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M, Miniseries, Pre-Miniseries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-26
Updated: 2019-01-16
Packaged: 2019-07-03 01:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15808221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gingercinderella/pseuds/gingercinderella
Summary: If a student can't hack it, a good instructor has to fail him. It's not her fault that he disappears after that. Or that his father then offers her a job. Or that he shows back up in their lives, years later.





	1. Chapter 1

Kara could do this. She’d met Commanders of Battlestars before- hell, she’d even met the Admiral before. She hadn’t had one come to her office, before, but this was fine. She hadn’t cleaned her office much, but she’d at least dumped out her ashtray. She’d shoved some papers into a drawer- her students wouldn’t be too confused when they got crumpled assignments from her, they had a general idea that she was a mess, even if they were all terrified of her.

Lords, if they could see her now, pacing in the cramped room, barely the size of a closet, alternatingly psyching herself up for this and trying to relax.

A quick rap on the door prompted her to take a few slow breaths, comb her fingers through her hair nervously. She’d cut it, right after, and was still trying to figure out if she liked it this short or not. Didn’t matter right now, but for a second she could only think to be self conscious of that tiny detail, not that Commander Adama would probably even notice it. Had Zak sent him a picture of her, ever? Maybe the one of the three of them on that perfect day in the park. Would he wonder?

The knock on the door came again. “Lieutenant Thrace?”

“Come in,” she answered this time, her voice steady. She could do this.

In person, he wasn’t quite as imposing as his profile from the database might indicate. He was taller than her, but just by a little bit. Maybe a little shorter than Zak, though her memory of exactly how much she had to look up to see him was fading. She couldn’t tell if she thought that was a good thing or not.

They exchanged formalities and she found herself seated behind her desk, and him in front of it, in no time. At least she hadn’t had to think too hard about saluting, the part of this conversation that she knew backwards and forwards.

There was no roadmap for this part.

“Have you heard from him?”

His question, getting right to it and skipping over pleasantries, didn’t shock her- Lee and Zak had both said he wasn’t a particularly verbose man.

“No. And I’m sorry that he… that it went this way. He’s a smart man, I’m sure he’s safe.” She said it so confidently, so sure, as if she hadn’t worried over where Zak was these days at least once a week. She looked down at her hands, unable to keep the Commander’s gaze.

The man sighed. “I suppose. I wish I knew where he was. He won’t talk to me, or Lee, or his mother.” There was a beat of silence and Kara could have chimed in with something about Lee, since Adama had brought him up, or she could have offered some reassurance, but all of that sounded so paltry at this point.

“How did he take the news, when you gave it? Did you do it in person, or by letter?”

“In person. He listened and then he stormed out of the office.” She’d called him into the office, her serious face on, and as soon as he shut the door behind him, Zak had smiled like this was some booty call. She’d had to tell him to sit down, and that was the first time his face had fallen in that hour. When she’d told him, his face was so calm for a moment, as if he was waiting for the  punchline, and then it was her turn to wait for him to yell. He’d nodded at her and then walked out without an answer. Not that the Commander needed all those details- she’d talked it over with Lee. The eldest Adama didn’t need more information than necessary, they’d decided. It was some mix of keeping him from being overwhelmed and to let Zak keep some secrets, give him the chance to reveal their relationship if he ever came back from his self-imposed exile.

“He wasn’t… the worst, I’ve ever seen. But he had no feel for flying. No matter how many extra hours I gave him in the simulator.”

“You gave him special treatment.”

The question felt like it pushed her off balance. She didn’t think she had- she’d wanted him to succeed more than anything, but there were lines she didn’t cross. Not even for Zak. “I guess. I wanted him to get it right, so I let him practice over and over again. He wanted it so badly.”

“He wrote to me about you. Said you were extraordinary. Said he had something to tell me.”

She dropped her gaze. So much for glossing over their entire relationship. “I don’t think that’s relevant anymore. Better to put it in the past.”

“You were involved, weren’t you?”

She nodded and looked up at him. His bright blue eyes were staring at her, unblinking, and she wished she knew him better, could tell if he was angry or grateful or what. 

“And now?”

“By the time I got home that day, his stuff was gone. He took the ring, too. I, uh, left it in a dish in the apartment when I went to work everyday.” Watching him storm out after she delivered the news, she had been so damn sure that he’d cool his heels. They’d have a frosty few weeks, but they would figure it out. Coming home that day to emptied drawers and his favorite pillow missing, she had wanted to just cry. 

“No note? Nothing to say where he was heading?”

“No.  I wouldn’t even know where to look for him.” 

She had thought about it, leaving her post for a few months to find him. But it would be futile, she knew, and even if she found him- it would be heartbreaking to see him, and doubly heartbreaking to be told to go away, as he undoubtably would do.

“Neither would I. He walked in my footsteps for so long, I don’t know what his plan B ever was.”

Kara had never heard of his plan B- he was going to be a pilot, like his father before him. It was the only option Zak had ever seen, and nothing anyone had ever said could temper that devotion. She had to guess that wherever his life had taken him, he was living in the realm of possibilities that had never been open to him before. She had to hope he was happy.

“Whatever he’s doing, I don’t think he wants me to try to see him at this point,” she murmured.

“You and me both.”

His gravelly voice rang of grief and loss and she wanted to apologize, but in the end there was little she could have done. She gave him everything she could to make him pass. It just wasn’t good enough.

“Do you think I made a mistake?” Her voice was soft, unsure for the first time in this conversation.

She wasn’t looking for his validation- she’d reminded herself of that plenty between the Commander requesting this meeting and today. She had done her job, and she couldn’t pass a student who wasn’t cut out for it, no matter how much it would crush him. But now that she was looking at him, she wanted that validation so frakking much.

“Do you think it was a mistake?”

“No,” she answered without hesitation. 

He nodded, and it was the first time she could read his expression, or could read part of it, at least. Was that respect? Approval, at least. Some tension she’d held in her body she hadn’t quite recognized loosened.

“If you had passed him, he could have hurt himself or anyone else. You did the right thing.”

Even if it meant that the Commander had lost a son, nearabouts. That’s why he had come, she figured. Five months without any contact, and the old man finally wanted to see the woman who had sent his son packing once and for all.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t do more for him.”

He shook his head. “No. You did everything, seems like. I’m sorry I…” He trailed off, and Kara wasn’t about to interrupt him. The silence hung between them for what seems like a minute, maybe more. He cleared his throat and looked back at her. “Are you still teaching?”

She shrugged. “For now.” Zak certainly wasn’t the first student she failed out of her courses, and it didn’t change her ability to do what needed to be done, but she had come to hate the job. Hating to crush such excited students, hating to wonder if she should give this nugget just a little more time in the simulator, hating to walk into their empty apartment every night. “I might put in for a change. Try to get something, uh, different.” She might be itching to get back in a Viper properly, if for nothing else than that rush. But she would do just about anything besides what she was doing in the Academy from her tiny office and the vast lecture halls and the simulators that didn’t lie about subpar students.

“I could use a pilot like you on my ship,” he said.

“You offering me a job?”

“From everything I’ve heard, you’d be the best pilot in the fleet if you could just stay out of the brig.” His smile was small but almost like an inside joke that the pair of them share, even though it was a pretty open secret among just about everyone. The she liked the way Adama regarded her, with some respect for keeping her son safe. 

Even if he’d disappeared, even if the Adamas might as well have lost a son that day, there hadn’t been a funeral. He wasn’t dead, at least not by her hand.

She had the feeling that they shared that relief, that disappeared into the shadows was better than buried. “I’d like that, sir. I’ve always wondered about a post on a Battlestar.”

He smiled a little wider, his grizzled face still managing to look sorrowful despite the grin. “It’ll take a while to get the paperwork through,” he answered. “But I look forward to having you on my ship after this semester.”

He looked at his watch and sighed. “We both have busy lives, don’t we? You’ve got class in ten minutes, and I’ve got a Battlestar to wrangle.” She’d set the meeting to be cut off by her class, and she regretted that now. But he was a busy man, like he’d said. It wasn’t the end of the world that this stressful conversation was coming to a close. 

Besides. She was damn sure that he’d want to talk to her more once she was on his ship.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara and Lee have a happily ever after ending til, you know. Cylons decide to do whatever they do. And Zak decides to attend the decommissioning.

The wedding invitation was returned to Kara, marked undeliverable. She hadn’t expected much less- Zak had sent one postcard, five months back, from the address she’d tried to send it to.  It didn’t mean he still lived there, or that he’d ever lived there. She and Lee imagined that he was living a nomadic life these days, not that there was anything to prove or disprove the theory.

But she liked to think of him as a jack-of-all-trades for hire, going from ship to ship when he wanted to see new faces and places. He’d been quick to pick skills up, even if he never quite mastered them. Lee supposed that he was more of a hitchhiker. The letter had been more of a “I’m alive” than an update on his life, so they could never settle on one answer.

And they wouldn’t settle on anything, since they didn’t have any way to contact him, if the “Return to sender” error code meant anything. He’d moved on or he didn’t want to speak to them.

Lee had tried to curtail her hopes when she’d typed in his address as a recipient- they had no way of knowing if he’d still be there. And besides, it wasn’t quite the event that he might be interested in. His ex-fiance, marrying his brother.

Kara had held out hope.

Now, with the red error message flashing on her screen, she let out a sigh. Whether Zak had seen it or not, he wouldn’t be at their wedding.

A month later, when she walked down the short aisle, she still looked around the room for him. Once upon a time, he had been her best friend. She wanted him here to witness this, to celebrate with her, even if it was selfish.

Marrying Lee was still just as good as she could have imagined. Her hands in his, repeating the words from the priest they both knew to be true-

_...in sickness and health, in famine and feast_

_May the Lords of Kobol grant us this peace_

After they kissed and the priest declared them married, Kara walked down the short aisle arm in arm with Lee. Their friends smiled widely at them, Bill beaming at the pair of them.

It all felt right. It was where they were supposed to be, married in a side room of the Galactica. She leaned in closer to him and whispered that she loved him again, and the answering smile she got was worth so much to her.

They had so much to celebrate. As a married couple, they had the right to be assigned to the same ship- and with the old man’s pull, that meant the Galactica. They were happy, despite the shit they’d gone through in the last year and half. And they were together.

A guy who didn’t want to be there to see that wasn’t that good of a friend, after all.

 

* * *

 

The invitation was returned back to Kara the second time, too. No error code this time. The header read _Fwd: Decommissioning Invitation._ She’d read over it before Bill had sent it, and had told him that she was more than fine with it. The smile she gave had to be genuine enough for the Commander to think it was real, so that was something. And Zak had responded this time, even if it wasn’t sent back to Bill, who’d actually sent the invitation.

_Are you sure you want me there, K?_

She wished that he’d properly his response instead of typing it, that she could see the way he wrote the K- it used to always be with a flourish, when he was writing it out for her. But on the computer screen, she couldn’t tell if using the initial was cold and terse or familiar and comfortable.

_It would mean the world to your father and Lee._

Her response was sent back to the address he’d used to send Lee his third “I’m alive” message since he’d been gone. Once again, the pair of them doubted it was still in use, but when Bill had asked if they had an address, they offered it up.

She supposed that if she told him to not go, if she asked him to keep his distance, he’d never respond to the invitation from the old man. Or perhaps send back that same error message as before. But she couldn’t do that, not on the cusp of the man’s retirement, and now when it looked like he might have a chance to see his prodigal son after more than four years. Or was it five?

_I’m asking if you want me there, K. Don’t dodge the question._

The answer returned quickly, and was just as easy to read in a distant tone or an almost flirty one.

_I want you to come._

Whether it was true or not didn’t matter. She had to do it for the Adamas.

She’d wanted him to come to her wedding, certainly. But she was nearing their two year anniversary now. Any one who hadn’t bothered to speak to her beyond “I’m not dead” in so long wasn’t a friend, not in the way she had once considered Zak to be her friend.

She wondered if she ever really knew him at all.

Zak didn’t reply back, but later that night when she and Lee were both in their quarters, Lee smiled wide. “Zak is coming.”

“Oh?”

“He replied to my father this morning.”

Kara smiled, a genuine response to Lee’s joy. “Thank gods. It’ll be good for all of us.”

It was true, she was pretty sure. The priests had said it was good to confront your demons.

Didn’t mean it would be particularly fun.

 

* * *

 

Staring Tigh down with a smile on her face, she taunted his wife.

He asked how the fiance was and she looked back at her cards. At least she’d win this hand and beat him.

When he flipped the table, she rushed forward to punch him just a little harder than she might have if she hadn’t had Zak on her mind, if he hadn’t brought up the fact that they’d never technically broken off the engagement.

She wasn’t surprised to find herself in the brig. Lee had stormed in and alternatingly looked pissed and unsurprised. They both knew this was just for show- placate Tigh for a few hours before he sobered up and she would never have to be on the same ship as him ever again. They brushed hands through the bars before he rushed back to his duty station.

In the cell, she rotated through exercises to pass the time.

“This looks familiar.”

She was staring down at the floor, thirteen pushups into a set of thirty. She hesitated once her arms were extended, but then went back down for the fourteenth. If he couldn’t have been bothered to say goodbye, she wouldn’t be bothered to cut short this set. She stood up after the last pushup in the set and kept her face blank as she could.

“I was beginning to think you hadn’t heard me.”

“I heard you, alright. Was kind of in the middle of something. Mission critical, you get it.” She looked him up and down, trying to keep her voice as casual as she could. He looked fine: a little older, a little less muscular, a little more tired than before, but fine. It wasn’t surprising to see him in civilian clothes, but it was strange nonetheless to see him in a buttondown and slacks instead of the monochrome tanks and basic issue trousers.

His eyes sized her up as well, just a cursory up-down. “Do I call you Kara Thrace or Kara Adama these days?”

“Kara will do just fine. Or Starbuck.” She didn’t want to talk about her marriage to Lee. Didn’t want to talk about anything, really, but she was the shining example of a captive audience.

“Mmm, if I’m not good enough to be a pilot, not sure it’s really for me to call you by your callsign.”

Kara closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to get into whatever fight he wanted to pick. She’d gone over the last few weeks before she’d failed him over and over in her head, and she’d made peace with what she chose. Lee and the old man both had said that she’d done the right frakking thing. She didn’t have to justify it to Zak here and now. “What do you want, Zak?”

“Just to say hi.”

“You said it. You found me in the brig to do it, congratulations. Is that all?”

She tried to stare daggers at him, to get him to leave, but maybe she’d lost her touch. She used to get students to scatter when she looked at them just right, and Zak was entirely unphased.

“It’s been a while.”

“Clearly,” she answered.

“I wanted to ask if you think you did the right thing.”

“I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

“I want to know.”

Kara looked at him, and for a second he looked so young. He’d come back, and now just wanted to be told that she’d made a mistake. That he hadn’t done anything wrong, that it was her fault that his life had come to this, whatever this was. That if it wasn’t for a mistake she’d made, he’d be in uniform right now.

“You had no feel for flying. I couldn’t pass you when you were a danger to yourself and others.”

Zak’s face changed in an instant, that soft, vulnerable face fading to steely indifference. As if she didn’t matter at all here, like this didn’t matter at all to him.

“I never wanted anything so frakking much as I wanted to be godsdamn viper jockey.”

Kara’s voice was small when she spoke finally, waiting to see if he would amend that statement. If he’d retract it. “When you proposed, you told me you wanted me more than you’d ever wanted the wings.”

“I suppose I did say that.”

Kara let out a rattled breath. Zak Adama wasn’t worth this. He wasn’t worth tears or breath or fraking anything, not if that’s how little he had ever cared for her.

“You should go. I’m sure whatever poor schmuck they’ve got escorting you around is looking for you.”

“Yes, sir.” It was almost the same way he used to sound when he flirted with her, but the new mocking tone cut through her and she had never been so happy to be alone in hack before, once the door closed on his way out.

 

* * *

 

When a marine guard opened the hatch into the brig,  she realized that she was actually in hell.

Zak was put into the cell adjoining hers and she let out a laugh. “What’d you do?”

“Tried to punch the commander.”

“Nobody could say that you don’t make a frakking spectacle of yourself, you giant ass.”

A marine guard actually stayed to keep an eye on them now that it wasn’t just one impulsive pilot, and it was as good as a reason as any not to have to speak to Zak. She knew Kyle well enough to stand at the far corner of her cell from Zak and talk about their next assignments and how bullshit the museum conversion was.

When the Commander’s speech was piped through the ship she stopped to listen.

_Sooner or later, the day comes that you can’t hide from the things you’ve done anymore._

An amused whistle came from the cell next to hers. “Dear old dad has taken a new tack for his speeches, looks like,” Zak murmured once the broadcast moved on the the next speaker.

“What the frak did you say to him?”

“Reminded him whose fault it was that I haven’t been around in the last few years.”

Kara wondered if the Commander had tried to defend her honor. Lee certainly would have, if he’d been there. She stayed silent, staring at the wall from her spot on her bunk.

“I don’t think I said that it was _your_ fault.” He was taunting her into this and if she was a stronger person, had a cooler personality, she wouldn’t take the bait. But who the frak was she kidding?

“Then who? Who are you going to blame for the fact that you left _everyone_ in your life terrified that you’d died? Left everyone who cared about you and loved you behind, huh? Over one stupid thing.” She couldn’t keep her words back, not when he was going to act like none of this was his fault.

“If you’d cared about me you would have passed me.”

“You told me not to do that.”

“You knew how important it was to me!”

Kara could recall the light that Zak used to get in his eyes every time he talked about when he got his wings. How frakking excited he was, the way it wasn’t treated as even the tiniest possibility that he wouldn’t become a pilot.

And she’d crushed that. How could she ever have thought that what they had would survive that?

“I’m not having this conversation,” she answered after a second, and turned away from him.

“You know what my father said to me? After the reporters were done taking pictures of the three of us, one _happy_ family? He said it was a shame that I had been so distant. As if it wasn’t _his words_ that reminded me _every day_ that I wasn’t a man if I didn’t wear the wings.”

He stood by the bars, close to Kara as he could get, but she just closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall, glad that the bunk wasn’t close enough for Zak to reach out and grab her. She’d have to sock him, if he tried anything, and the Commander wouldn’t like it.

She didn’t think she’d be too opposed to punching Zak in the face right about now.

“Boo frakking hoo. You’re not dead, and you didn’t kill anyone else.”

He kept talking after that, insisting on one thing or another, but she stayed right where she was and tuned it out.

She opened her eyes after he’d tired himself out. “I invited you to my frakking wedding, Zak. Don’t say this is all mine and Lee’s and the old man’s fault. You ran off when you didn’t live up to your expectations, and left us behind like we didn’t matter. You-”

The hatch opened, and Kara shut her mouth as her head whipped around. “Lee,” she breathed, her scowl melting into a smile. She could hear Zak snort out a laugh as she got up to the bars to be closer to her husband. “You here to spring me yet?”

“No, not yet. Come here to get his ass on the first frakking ship out of here.” He nodded at Zak, who rolled his eyes.

“I’m getting picked up in a few hours, is that not soon enough?”

“You took a swing at the commander. You’re off this ship, Zak. And the only thing leaving now is the Secretary’s, so aren’t you lucky.”

Kara watched as Lee had the marine open the cell and take him out.

“See you, Lee,” she called after him.

He turned back and smiled at her, that same smile that greeted her at the end of a long day, that same smile that she’d seen at the end of the aisle. She settled back into the bunk, not too worried about the next few hours in hack.

 

* * *

 

Billy’s hands shook when the pilot read the print out.

He was an aide. He had done his frakking best in school but he didn’t have the kind of connections it took to work in an office close to power. He’d dreamt of working in a governor’s office, or in a cabinet job that would get him the right connections to get to a governor.

He had plans.

And with two sentences, that came crashing down around him. His political career was over. There wasn't a governor’s office to _work for_ anymore.

When the Secretary told him her secret, as if he hadn’t pieced it together, and confessed that she hasn’t been able to think of anything but the cancer, it was simple as breathing to reassure her.

His mind was stuck on his aspirations. Easier than thinking too much of his family.

Well, his aspirations and the man in the seat behind him. The man muttered prayers to himself, but offered no reassurance to anyone. Small groups of people were clustering, panicking and praying together, but he left himself out of that.

“Zak Adama, isn’t it?” Billy asked when he finally tired of just hearing the other man’s soft words,when he wanted to get out of his own terrifying thoughts for a few minutes.

“Can’t say I remember you, sorry,” he answered with a sheepish grin. Billy knew why he was on the ship, knew enough of the intricacies of the situation to be able to explain, more or less, why Zak had swung at the elder Adama. But Billy wasn’t the type of guy a washout from the Colonial Fleet would take too much notice of.

“It’s alright. Are you religious?”

“Who isn’t when the world is frakking ending?”

Billy’s thoughts strayed to his family for a moment, how his sister took her children to the temples, before he could curb the memories and focus on the man in front of him. “I suppose.” He’d grown up religious, but he’d been to busy for that in a long while. He hadn’t felt an overwhelming urge to pray, but he was clearly in the minority there.

“Adama!” The Secretary’s voice called as she came out of the cockpit. Both Zak and Billy hurried to their feet.

“Yes, Ma’am,” Zak answered quickly, in a tone that was exactly what Billy would have expected from anyone in the Fleet. Old habits died hard, it seemed.

Roslin looked the washout up and down. She hadn’t met him either before now, but Billy knew she was just as in tune with his record. “I suppose we’re lucky we have you aboard. You might come in handy.”

“I’m no fighter, Ma’am.”

“No, we’ve got Captain Jolly for that. You’ve got insight into your father’s head, if we need it.”

“I’m not sure how much use I’ll be.” That same sheepish grin on his face from before, when he’d admitted to not recalling Billy. It was practiced, designed to put people at ease, Billy supposed. It was a smart move- Billy had certainly felt comfortable with Zak despite his record and the fact that he’d taken a swing at the highest ranking man on the Battlestar they’d just left.

“Who knows what will help these days. Billy, walk with me.” She nodded at Zak in a clear dismissal, and continued down the aisle away from the cockpit. Billy kept up with her quick pace, just like he always did. This was his job, keeping up.

As soon as they were past the curtain and into the next cabin, she stopped and turned to him. “Don’t take your eyes off him. I don’t trust him, but we might need him, by gods.”

He could see the fear in her eyes for just a flash before she settled out her expression into her usual political facade, all sincerity and earnestness, a face you could trust.

It wasn’t so different from Zak’s face.

Bill nodded, and turned on his heel to go sit with the youngest Adama again. It wasn’t so bad of an assignment, given the world was ending and he could just chat about Pyramid ball.

 

* * *

 

“Galactica on the line, sir,” the pilot said, looking at his console. Billy shook his head when the pilot looked back at the pair of them. This was the president’s call, not theirs. They hadn’t been the ones to send that message, but she’d stepped out. The pilot’s eyes locked on Zak instead. “He requested you.”

“I’m not in the fleet, I-” It was the first time Billy had seen him properly flustered, and it might have been endearing if they didn’t need him to just frakking talk on the line. Zak’s mouth puckered like the act of taking the headset was akin to stepping into a brawl he already knew he’d lose. “Adama here.” His voice was confident.

Billy wondered again why he’d never considered politics. He would have voted Adama in for anything, just based on the speeches Billy was sure he was capable of.

“Are you- is your ship alright?”

“Colonial One is fine. Jolly’s Viper- he diverted a missile from us. He got caught in the blast.”

Billy wished he could hear the Commander’s response, but he was sure it was the same as the cockpit had been when they’d lost contact with Jolly. They’d all lost the capacity to be surprised at the deaths, but it still rattled them every time they heard of another pilot, battlestar, or colony lost.

“We’re engaged in rescue operations. Command of the President.”

Roslin herself walked in, and murmured softly that she’d like the conversation to be public, not through the headset, just in time to hear herself be called a school teacher. She kept her face impressively calm, all things considered. Her mouth opened to form some response just as she was preemptively cut off by warning sounds from the console. Zak leaned in to see what alarms were buzzing, and immediately dismissed the call from Galactica.

“What is it?” Roslin asked.

“Cylon fighters.”

Billy had never wished before that Roslin would abandon her ideals. Never once. But standing in the back corner of the cockpit as she condemned them to frakking die rather than jump away from her little fleet of ships, he wished that he could tell her to just leave. Beg her to save herself rather than a whole host of people.

Zak was right about on the same wavelength. “Permission to go below?” He asked, a picture of procedure even in a time like this. Roslin nodded, but then turned to Billy, giving him a look that sent him chasing after the man.

“Do you have a plan?” He asked as they ran through the main cabins and to the service ladders to the docking port. The pair of them had come down here earlier, when Roslin had them recover Jolly’s Viper. It wasn’t too badly damaged, all the systems in need of a good reboot, but the shockwaves from the blast had done the pilot in.

The Viper loomed over them as Zak ran to the circular turbine-esque machines instead. Zak still hadn’t said a damn word, but he fiddled frantically on the console by the turbines. What had he called them before? Pulse beacons? Billy didn’t dare interrupt, not when this was something that could save their skins.

The turbines hummed to life, a quiet sound that accompanied a bright glow. “What- is it supposed to do that?”

Zak threw him a smile over his shoulder. “Do me a favor and pray that this works,” he said, and turned back to the console.

Billy sent up a prayer- his first in ages- just as the light on the turbines turned blindingly bright, and he lost consciousness.

The pilot shook him awake. It meant he wasn’t dead, just a little banged up from falling onto the concrete. The president shook Zak awake from where he had fallen by the turbines, and the man gave a soft chuckle.

“Lee was right,” he muttered, as the other three in the hangar bay looked on in confusion. Most of the technical talk went over his head, but Billy shivered at the way Zak said he hadn’t been sure that it would save them. Their lives had been saved by the theories of a couple of kids in War College who couldn’t get the theories to even work.

Zak was unsteady on his feet but offered a hand to Billy to help him up. Billy did his best to keep up.

“Now if I could suggest-” Zak began.

“Evacuate to Ragnar? That’s the plan, I don’t want to give the Cylons a chance to realize their mistake.”

“Good,” Zak answered, and looked over his shoulder at Billy. “You keeping up, chaperone?” His tone was light and teasing, but Billy was still finding his bearings after the pulse generator knocked them all out. Zak extended a hand and Billy took it gratefully. “Don’t worry, I think you’re growing on me, chaperone.”

 

* * *

 

“I’m good enough,” he said, and she looked over him in confusion. Zak was supposed to be on the deck- he’d become a decent enough mechanic in the last few weeks. Her assumption that he’d been a jack-of-all-trades in the years since he’d left hadn’t been too far off the mark.

He didn’t come into the ready room. Kara figured there was an unspoken agreement there. Even at the end of days, he still had failed out of flight school. “Can we not do this? I’ve had a long frakking day, Zak.” The nuggets had been terrible, worse than she’d imagined, and she was exhausted and just wanted to get into her quarters.

She knew for a fact that Lee was also about to turn in for the night. It was funny, how when she was married to the man who made the schedules, their schedules lined up pretty well.

“No, I think we should. You said yourself that they were the worst you’ve ever seen-”

“It was their first day,” she answered, surprising herself in defending them. She hadn’t meant that, when they got out of their cockpits. She hadn’t meant for Zak Frakking Adama to hear that, at least.

“I want another chance.”

In another life, she might have said yes. Flattop and the rest needed replacing, and Zak’s soft eyes were just the way they used to be when he’d asked her if she really thought he had it in him to be a pilot. So open and trusting and eager. She’d barely been able to say no to those eyes.

But she remembered those runs in the simulator. The turns he didn’t quite take fast enough. The reflexes that just weren’t there.

They couldn’t afford another accident. And that was all Zak was in a cockpit- an accident waiting to happen.

“No. And that’s final.” She tried to step around him to leave, but he backed up to the door, blocking her way.

“You have to give me another chance,” he nearly pleaded. “You know what it would mean to the old man to have both his sons be pilots.”

She scowled up at him. Bill Adama had agreed with her that she’d done the right thing. Lee had agreed. Her superiors had, too.

No matter what Zak had been to her, he wasn’t worth going against all of that, going against her godsdamn gut feeling that this was a bad plan.

“Go to sleep, Zak. Don’t you have an early shift tomorrow?” She said, and ducked under his arm and out the door. He didn’t try to stop her this time, but she looked back at him once she was five paces away. That soft look in his eyes, so kind and loving, had melted in an instant.

Had he looked like this when he’d packed up his shit from their apartment? He hadn’t yelled at her when she delivered the news that she was failing him the first time, and he wasn’t yelling now. She was pretty sure that yelling would have been worse, but maybe then she might have felt a little justified if she chose to punch him.

“Frak you, Kara,” he murmured. “I deserved that.”

She shrugged and turned to go. Whatever friendship they’d developed since the Cylons attacked- if it was all leading up to this moment, if this was his endgame, then fine.

She slipped into bed next to her already sleeping husband.

“Your day okay?” He mumbled, turning over to let her spoon him.

“I’ve got a good bunch of nuggets. We’ll be alright,” she answered and kissed his neck as he quickly fell back asleep. They’d be alright. She didn’t need Zak as a pilot, or a friend.

Things were already just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a hot minute. Whoops.  
> Got thoughts on how Zak might also show up? Let me know. I've got like, five half-baked ideas but have no inspiration to write any of them.

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote a draft of this four months ago but didn't do anything with it because I typed up 4 ways how Zak could come back after/during the miniseries, and couldn't choose.
> 
> I found it again today and decided not to choose? So the next 4 chapters are going to be one-offs (probably) of how he pops back up in their lives, for better or for worse.
> 
> Got a thought of how that could happen? Hit me up in the comments.


End file.
